Mother & Calf
BY TREVOR CONWAY.
The newcomer’s presence
– sticky and matted, like an old rug –
received its due recognition:
the timid approaches of reverent heads,
followed by curt
yet definite stares.
Whenever one came too close,
a haughty shake of the mother’s head
explained a misunderstanding of distance,
and all the while,
the calf’s wet hooves
made weak stabs at tufts of grass,
its legs unaccustomed to the duty of weight.
By evening, it was up and running,
as though long acquainted with fields.
And once, when they grazed apart,
the calf gave a long, mournful plea.
Soon, they were together again,
its hurried hops
stilled with a vigorous lick on the cheek.
Trevor Conway is a writer and editor from Sligo, northwest Ireland. His first collection of poems, Evidence of Freewheeling, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2015; his second, Breeding Monsters, followed in 2018, then No Small Thing in 2023. He also published a children’s guide for writing poetry, Nurturing the Creative Child: A Guide to Writing Poetry. You can find him at trevorconway.weebly.com, and on Instagram @trevorconwaywriting.